Fear Not the Storm
by grumkinsnark
Summary: Fear not the storm. Fear the bright light that appears in the midst of it.


**Fear Not the Storm

* * *

**

He didn't turn Vicki Donovan because he was bored. (_Though he was_.)

He didn't kill Jeremy because Katherine crushed his heart. (_Though she did_.)

He doesn't hook up with Rose because she's convenient. (_Though she is_.)

He doesn't drink himself into oblivion just to curb the bloodlust. (_Though he does_.)

He doesn't speak almost exclusively in sarcasm because he's an asshole. (_Though, okay, he kind of is that, too_.)

He doesn't constantly disappoint Elena because he wants to. (_Really he doesn't_.)

He is how he is because he likes being hated. Likes being the bad guy. The black sheep. The dangerous one. The one who surprises people when he so much as pays a legitimate compliment, because it's such a change of pace.

Not that he cares, of course. All he cares about is the status quo. Keeping things the same. He doesn't care about what people think of him (he _doesn't_), because that means there aren't any expectations.

Well, there aren't _supposed_ to be.

And there weren't. For a hundred and forty-five years—apart from Stefan's stupid "Inside, there's still my big brother, I know there is" mentality—no one really gave a shit about him, and he didn't give a shit about anyone. Not the sorority girls he fucked, certainly not the unfortunate victim from whom he'd take the life, no one.

Even Katherine hadn't cared about him, not really. He illusions himself that she did, but it doesn't take too much scratching away at the wall in his head to see the truth: she loved Stefan, only truly Stefan, and was just using him.

Until her goddamn doppelgänger.

For whatever ridiculous reason, she cares—_cared_—about him. He killed people, he turned people, he insulted her, he tried everything he could think of to make her hate him, and yet just the opposite happened.

_Don't make me regret being your friend…_

Despite his best efforts, he somehow (fuck if he knows how) grew on her. For the first time, his biting sarcasm and smirks-not-smiles and murder actually _endeared_ him to someone. Even that he didn't care about, though, couldn't _let_ himself care about it. _Your problem_, he'd thought more than once, _if you think I'm going to _change_ just because you seem to like me for whatever ridiculous, _childish_ reason._

And _somehow_, he'd found himself upon her porch, taking her dress from her, looking down at her and feeling all the sturdy barriers he'd built up for over a century systematically fall down, one by one, his own Berlin Wall crumbling into useless dust. Her eyes—Katherine's eyes, but fuck if he knew that then—curious and encouraging, boring into his own as if she could see into his very mind.

It came from Katherine's mouth, the line about him having good inside him, but even now, even after he knows of the switch, he realizes it's something the real Elena would say anyway. It may have been Katherine that kissed him (_God he wishes it weren't_), but it isn't hard to pretend that the rest was all Elena.

Hell, even after he'd killed her _brother_, snapped the kid's neck as if it were a hollow twig, eventually she'd forgiven him. Not forgotten, sure, but forgave. Understood. He'd gone as far on the side of Wrong that he could without actually killing _her_, showed his true self, and yet she was somehow able to look past it. Peel back the layers of evil, sift through the oily black mess that's his head, categorize his actions as those of a broken man and not of a cold-blooded killer. (_Even though he is, he knows that_.)

It's because of her he's like this. This convoluted mess. It's because of her he spends more than a moment or two—significantly more—every goddamn day toeing the line between good and evil. The line is blurred like it hasn't been since he was, well, _alive_, and he isn't fond of the change. He doesn't like change period. Same, same, more of the same, and he's a happy camper. (_And yet not really._)

He's tried everything in the book to get her to hate him, but it never sticks. He wishes it would, he really, truly does. (_And yet doesn't_.) So _he_ tries to hate _her_. Tries to make her into one of those ocular illusion puzzles, the ones where you have to look through the obvious picture to get to the hidden one underneath. He pretends she looks like Elena, but has Katherine's dark, twisted motivations inside her.

It doesn't work. Not that he'd had a whole lot of hope it would anyway. Even when she's annoying—does she _have_ to make out with his brother four feet from him?—she's prancing closer to his heart. He tries to wish he'd never come back to Mystic Falls, had just said _Fuck Katherine, let Stefan have her_. Said _Good luck, brother, with your freakish Katherine double. I'm going to go bang some chicks over in SoCal._

But he hadn't. And now he's caught in this awful in-between, this vortex of repeating history. He watches himself as he does things, like he's a man possessed. Watches himself methodically destroy everything around him, burn every bridge. Even the one connecting him to Stefan, he feels is charred beyond repair.

But damn her persistent self, no matter how many times he tries to burn the one connecting him to her, she always finds a way to Band-Aid it. Finds more wood, more ropes. Duct tape and bar rags if she has to. No matter what, she continues to try and fix it. For all his modus operandi of taking one step forward and two back, she wants to reverse it. Say _This isn't you, Damon_, in that sweet, convincing voice of hers. _Even if you hate yourself, I can't hate you. I _won't_ hate you. So suck it up._

He sits outside her window, sometimes (well aware he must look like that sparkly douche from those waste-of-paper books doing so), listens in on some of her phone conversations, or late night slumber parties she has with Bonnie, or Caroline, even. Listens as they nonchalantly mention his wrongdoings, how _he's the one who destroyed this town_ and _it's a good thing you got the better brother, Elena_. Listens as she instead says, quietly (he thinks sometimes so quietly they can't hear it), _He's not so bad._

_How the hell can you have so much faith in me? _he's wanted to ask her so many times. _How the hell do you see good in me when I see none at all? When there's none to be found? You crazy, idealistic teenager._

But he doesn't. Because though she says those _He's not so bad_ things, she never does to him. It's stoic, stoic, stoic. It's _Thanks, Damon_, or perhaps even _He's got a point, Stefan_, but never _I trust you_, or _I'm sorry_, or _Goddamn it, listen to me! You're better than this. Please. Do the right thing, for me. _Not like she used to.

His head is a mess of what-does-this-mean and I-can't-let-myself-feel-for-her and she's-_Stefan's_-not-mine and I-hate-her-I-have-to-hate-her (_and why-can't-she-hate-me_), the thoughts swirling around like an angry hurricane.

And when she finds him nearly drained of blood, his body torn to shreds by werewolf claws, sees her crying but her mouth set, he thinks he's either surely gone mad from delirium, or he's dead (like, _dead_ dead). He watches through spotty vision as she grabs a fallen letter opener and without hesitation drags it across her palm, bright red blood welling.

She puts her hand over his mouth, like she's trying to shut him up, but instead all he feels is the warm, honeysuckle-sweet liquid trickle down his throat. _It's not fatal_, he hears her wavering voice say. _Stefan and Rick, they're at Duke, they called…it's not toxic, but…I just had to make sure. I had to make sure you were okay._

He wants to say something—anything—but he can't, can only feel her life giving him his. (_Oh, the irony._)

She's gone when he wakes, but she's dragged him away from the pool of his own blood, covered him in a blanket. He sits up, testing his newly regenerated body, feeling the gentle thrum of her sacrifice flow through him, reminding him.

There's a note, though, written in her hand, resting next to him. Some words are struck out, her thoughts disjointed, as his so often are.

_Damon_, it reads,

_I wanted to__…__I thought__…__ I'm glad you're okay. Stefan says you'll be fine. He says he'll check on you later. (He needs to hunt.) __I would've__…__Just__…__ Call me. I need to know if…_

It isn't finished, like she couldn't bear to write anymore. (_He doesn't dare to hope she simply didn't know _what_ to write anymore._) But it's enough. He feels that dam inside him break, the one he'd thought he'd been so careful to maintain, but one he realizes now that with every kill he'd not been repairing it, but rather plugging the holes with putty, a poor patch-up job with no real determination behind it.

He finds his phone somewhere amongst books and papers on the desk, dials her number. She answers in a heartbeat, slightly breathless as if running to catch the call before it went to voicemail.

_Hello?_

He pauses, wondering what exactly is the criterion of conversation for when you get mauled by a werewolf and need to say thank-you to the girl who gave you back your life.

_Damon?_

He swallows, puts his finger up to the End key. He doesn't know how to do this. He's not that person. He knows there's no good inside him, regardless of what Elena thinks. Maybe there are some times when he does good things, but they're never for the right reasons. (_Really, they're not_.) Every move he makes with her is selfish, no matter what. He can't change. He doesn't _do_ change. And it's better to keep it that way, for everyone it is.

His finger hovers above the key. The barest touch and her voice will be gone, and with it, himself. His lingering humanity that he'd tried with every fiber of his being to suppress. Just one touch…

_Damon? Hello? Please, tell me you're all right…_


End file.
